Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn

The positives: 1. Another fine performance from the boy who plays in Super 8. 2. Great soundtrack. Really. It doesn't seem to fit this film. The negatives: 1. Poor screenplay. Dialogue tries to be faithful to time period but comes off very odd and wooden/ artificial. 2. Poor casting. Outside of the main character of Tom, every other actor seems destined to play in B movies. 3. Poor editing. No doubt due to (1) above, but the editing was choppy, in large part due to a choppy storyline / script. 4. Poorly synced voice overs (see #5). 5. Poor casting. The teacher has a jarringly odd, non-Midwestern accent (German?) which simply pulls the viewer out of the movie. Becky is a fine actress but is just not well cast to this Tom. The judge clearly never voices a single line; everything is (poorly) dubbed for this Bulgarian actor. 6. Dialogue tried to be faithful to the time period but failed. Toward the end, I believe Tom even says "fudge" for "fu--." Dialogue /scripting was just very artificial. 7. Storyline was methodical but never natural. Things "happened." But it never flowed. 8. Some scenes of the Mississippi were shot on 16 mm (or poorer quality film stock) and inserted into the movie, but they don't integrate well. 9. Narratives of Mark Twain (Val Kilmer) interrupt the story, and, while they introduce a novel concept to the storyline, simply feel odd/off to story progression. In short, this really felt like a C movie (not even a B movie) in caliber, due to uneven production value.

Slow. Weak. Choppy. Terrible directing. My kids are forever going to hate Tom Sawyer as this was their first exposure. The characters are so boring! No fun. No fun at all...

Garbage trash. Why remake this? The one with the kid from home improvement is so much better. I was shocked at how bad the cinematography is, from the cinematographer that made 300: rise of an empire and spectre?!?!? I guess it must be a cheap budget, poor pre production and horrible directing. This movie even makes a good cinematographer look bad. I mean wow. Also, why hire cal Kilmer and then cover him in cheap makeup and have him disguise his voice or possibly have a different voice over actor overlay his voice over val's?? Wouldn't even have guessed in a million years that is was Kilmer if I hadn't seen his name in the credits. Good grief how does a movie like this get funded? Go find some good stuff, like my movies.

Oh gosh, it can't get worse than that. I wanted to show this movie to my son after reading with him the book, it was supposed to be a treat for us. How disappointing, I can't express enough. Why are the boys played by grown up lads, whose eyes can't merely express a joy of 12/13 years olds? The Heg couldn't smile through the whole movie, was it painful for him to play in it? Such poor production, I am actually shocked. I went to google to see if anyone thinks the same or there's something wrong with me? How frustrating to pay money for watching that. Such primitive depiction of a wonderful world of Mark Twain.

I love the Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn stories, and have collected as many filmed versions as possible, including updated ones. When this DVD appeared, I had high hopes of its content because of the presence of Jake T. Austin & Joel Courtney, both likable and very capable young actors. Oh dear, what a mess it turned out to be, adapted and directed by Jo Kastner from Germany, and filmed in Bulgaria. It was clear from the start that Kastner had little cultural grasp on Mark Twain's small town, mid-West American world in the middle of the 19th Century, nor any grasp whatsoever of pace and depth in presenting the characters and story. It is an express train journey through "Tom Sawyer", with a bit of "Huckleberry Finn" pointlessly stuck on the end, with no time to explore or indulge in the unfolding scenes. The inclusion of Val Kilmer (doubtless for "star" appeal) portraying the author Mark Twain wasted valuable time which should have gone into the main plot.

Whilst Joel Courtney did his smiling best in the role of Tom Sawyer, Jake T. Austin played Huckleberry Finn at best with detachment if not actually in a continuous sulk, perhaps aware of the poor material he was made to perform and unhappy being in Bulgaria, a backward Eastern European country far away from the Mississippi. Katherine McNamara was a poor choice as Becky Thatcher, and the rest of the casting was a mess, not least an insipid Injun Joe. The 2011 German language "Tom Sawyer" film is infinitely more enjoyable, even with the language barrier, and if you want a highly watchable and authentic telling of "Tom Sawyer", the 1938 film starring Tommy Kelly holds up very well, as does the semi-musical version from 1973 starring Johnny Whitaker. In short, avoid this German/Bulgarian disaster movie like you would food poisoning.